ani artinian
Lexicon for an Aging Woman
Marionette lines make me
a ventriloquist’s dummy
Barcode lines make me
a trinket
Jelly rolls make me
a sugar-dusted donut
Tear troughs make me
a hollowed-out dish
And with enough crow’s feet
I’ll be a murder,
holding grudges and funerals,
forever remembering the faces of
those who were kind
and goading our young into
mobbing the wicked
St. Lucia, 15 years ago
Sure, I remember the box of cashews, still in shells,
the grassy mountains I never climbed,
the grey-eyed waiter and pull of the tide,
the thickness of the heat that hung around us
impervious to the hardworking fan.
But what sticks in my memory most
is the cartography of my body:
a belly sloped inwards,
slim waist,
pores invisible to the eye.
A voice that only spoke softly,
an apology curled into every intonation.
Everything narrow, everything light
suspended in longing, waiting, hoping,
reaching up towards the cerulean sky.
I no longer wish to slope inwards.
I no longer hope or wait for things.
I am ravenous
for a sweetness that spills down my chin,
for the wildness that grows between sidewalk cracks.
Ani is a pragmatic copywriter by day and dramatic poet by night. Her poems have been published in Gather, Prosetrics, Off Topic Publishing, and the Upon Learning That ecopoetry anthology, and her work has received awards of recognition from The Writers’ Union of Canada, Writer’s Digest, and The Australian Writers’ Centre.